Sunday 23 September 2012

Now you know what I did last summer....

Yes yes, I know, I haven't been in touch, I promised i'd write and I didn't, I didn't even call, thats partly down to my phone, it randomly turns off, usually when i'm trying to take a picture or send a message. But i'm back now, and are you in for an exciting tale...

I spent the summer looking after the Chilean Olympic Committee, dressed in a silly purple uniform at the London 2012 olympics, I was doing all sorts; watching tennis, running triathlon routes with athletes, drinking posh champagne at embassies and sewing.


Living the Dream


Anyone need a light?
Anyway, sumer has come and past, its back to work. Im starting my PhD tomorrow, i've got a library induction and registration, after which I get paid! Pretty nervous, haven't been a fresher in ages, but i'm sure ill make a few chums and join a few clubs.

I will be researching the use of solid state gas sensors over the next 4 years. For those of you that aren't hard core nanotechnology geeks, gas sensors are small devices that monitor the presence and concentration of various gases in the atmosphere. They are semiconductors that have a fixed current running through them. When the suspected gas react with the surface of the sensor and causes a change in the current. This change in the current indicates the concentration of the gas in the atmosphere.

This is a relatively young field of research, sensors have been developed to detect a number of gases for a number of reasons. Research at UCL is currently looking at using gas sensors for medical diagnosis and security detection. It is hoped that in about 10 years, as part of a routine doctors check up, a doctor will use a gas sensor to give you early warning signs for variety of blood conditions and some cancers, but thats a few years off yet.

As its a DTC, I also have to do some modules, so far i've signed up for global security challenges, Risk and contingency planning, qualitative methods and doing research in security science, I get to choose one from the department of chemistry, but ill choose that next week.

I went to Germany a few weeks ago on an induction course where I got to meet the 10 (7 girls, 3 boys) other people that got EPSRC funding to go onto the SECReT programme, they are all lovely people who I am sure I will get along with. The conference we attended was the 7th Future Security conference in Bonn. It was arranged by the Fraunhofer Group, a german research group involved in security and defence technology. During the conference there was only one talk relevant to gas sensing, but it was a good experience. The boys of the group hit the town on the last night and met a very jolly ld man who told u he was a world respected artist and that if we wanted he would draw a picture of us. Ususally e charges €500, but as we were students, it would only cost us €2 each. Naturally we paid him his money (we rounded it up to €10) and watched intently as he put his artistic skills into action. 10 minutes later he gave us the drawing you see below

Definitely worth €500....
It goes without saying it will be hung with great pride in the office.

Thats all for now, fairly boring update, but once things start happening, ill have a bit more to tell you, including, hopefully, what SECReT actually stands for (none of my course mates, or the lecturer that went with us to Bonn, knew what it meant)

Laters

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